Maureen Dowd, "W., Borne Back Ceaselessly": No Undoing What's Been Done

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In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "W., Borne Back Ceaselessly," Maureen Dowd says of the 28 pages of a 2002 congressional report on the 9/11 attacks that have just been released:

"If the 28 pages had been released back in 2002, the revelations might have helped stop the Iraq invasion by refocusing attention where it belonged: on possible real links between Al Qaeda and Saudi royals, rather than the fantasy links between Al Qaeda and Saddam pushed by Dick Cheney."

Back when, I opposed the Second Gulf War because it was apt to destroy the delicate equilibrium between a Sunni-dominated Iraq and a Shiite Iran, both monstrous in their own right.

Saudi Arabia, which whips and incarcerates women who have been gang raped and decapitates persons convicted of witchcraft and sorcery, was and is no better. All of which did not prevent Maureen from hobnobbing with Saudi royalty back in March 2010.

If only George W. Bush had not been goaded into going to war with Saddam? If only ...

But that was 13 years ago. No point in kicking a dead horse. The US must look to the future.

Syria and Iraq have disintegrated, Turkey is shaky, and it's time to ensure that the Middle East's 30 million pro-Western Kurds (also living in Iran) be granted their independence and freedom.

Stephen F. Hayes and William Kristol, "Demand the Documents": Iranian Ties to al-Qaeda Hidden by Obama Adminstration

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"I think they have a policy of opposition to us and a great enmity, but I have no specific knowledge of a plan by Iran to actually destroy us."

- John Kerry, response to Congressman Ted Poe, July 28, 2015

Kerry was obfuscating the truth.

In a Weekly Standard article entitled "Demand the Documents," Stephen F. Hayes and William Kristol tell us that the Obama administration is hiding documents that link Iran with al-Qaeda. Hayes and Kristol write:

"We have been told by six current or former intelligence officials that the collection of documents captured in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound includes explosive information on Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda over the past two decades, including details of Iran’s support for al Qaeda’s attacks on Americans.

. . . .

Among the most significant were documents that shed new light on the complicated relationship between Iran and al Qaeda. Even the Obama administration has acknowledged the relationship. In 2011, the administration designated six al Qaeda operatives who were responsible for what officials described as al Qaeda’s lifeline. The network was based in Iran. 'This network serves as the core pipeline through which al Qaeda moves money, facilitators, and operatives,' according to the Treasury Department’s designation. In an interview with The Weekly Standard at the time, a senior Obama administration official involved in the designation said, 'Without this network, al Qaeda’s ability to recruit and collect funds would be severely damaged.'

. . . .

Contacted about the status of al Qaeda’s Iran network earlier this spring, two intelligence officials confirmed that it was still functioning and still critical to al Qaeda operations.

. . . .

The Obama administration does not want the bin Laden documents released. To date, the administration has made public fewer than 150 documents out of more than a million, despite a statutory requirement to expedite the release of the collection."

Would this information impact upon public perception of Obama's legacy-creating nuclear deal with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei? Of course. Would this information impact upon the upcoming Congressional vote on the nuclear deal? Absolutely. However, Obama's legacy-creating deal must come first, regardless of the danger.

Will Damascus Soon Fall to ISIS?

Will Damascus soon fall to ISIS or to the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front? It seems that the Russians and Hezbollah think that this is the case. As reported by The Jerusalem Post in an article entitled "Report: Russia turning its back on Syrian regime, not honoring prior agreements":

"'The Kremlin has begun to turn away from the regime,' the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Sunday, quoting an opposition official.

According to the report, for three months Moscow has been reducing its diplomatic staff in Damascus to essential personnel exclusively and the most recent move saw 100 Russians, along with their families, board a plane at the Latakia airport. Lebanese figures belonging to Hezbollah, as well as Iranian officials, were also said to be aboard the flight. According to the report, none of the personnel, main-stays of the government's War-Room throughout the civil war, have been replaced."

More evidence of the imminent fall of Damascus? Again, as reported by The Jerusalem Post in an article entitled "Assad hanging on, suspicion surrounds report he told Alawites to flee capital," which was published at the beginning of May:

"A report in the Saudi newspaper Okaz on Sunday quoted Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas denying an article in the same paper a day earlier quoting unnamed sources claiming that Syrian intelligence told the elite Alawite families to leave the capital within 48 hours for its coastal stronghold of Latakia."

In addition, DEBKAFile is informing us in an article entitled "Iran weighs turning Hizballah’s anti-Israel missiles against ISIS to save Damascus and Baghdad" that "Iran is eyeing the re-allocation of the roughly 1,000 long-range rockets in Hizballah’s store" if the fate of Damascus hangs in the balance, i.e. turning the missiles against ISIS instead of Israel.

Stay tuned.

Obama to Meet With Emir of Qatar on Tuesday: Obama Seeks Modus Vivendi With ISIS and al-Qaeda

President Obama will meet at the White House with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, on Tuesday. Yes, that's right: Obama will meet with the leader of Qatar, a country that has funded ISIS, al-Nusra and al-Qaeda; however, he remains unwilling to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in another two weeks.

Apparently, this meeting is in keeping with a new Obama policy to explore avenues of discourse and understanding with Middle East terror organizations.

Yesterday, I wrote:

"The US State Department's Marie Harf declared three days ago, 'We can not kill our way out of this war' and went on to say that we must 'go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it is lack of opportunity for jobs.' So is it now Obama's policy also to reach a negotiated settlement with ISIS?"

Obviously, there was nothing accidental about Harf's comments. Obama is indeed seeking a modus vivendi with ISIS and the other monstrous terror organizations that plague the Middle East and the rest of the world. Maybe he intends to offer jobs to their memberships in order to restore order in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and a host of other countries.

Meanwhile with Netanyahu's speech before Congress drawing near, a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Obama Parries Questions on Iran Deal From Arabs as Well as Israelis" by Jay Solomon is informing us that Arab governments are also placing Obama on notice of their disapproval of any deal with Iran that would allow Tehran to keep its nuclear weapons development capabilities. Saudi Arabia has placed America's president on notice that they will develop technologies equivalent to those of Iran, i.e. a Middle East nuclear arms race is in the offing.

Can it get any worse?

Qatar Dismayed by Egyptian Strike Against ISIS

You will recall how Obama attempted to force Israel to accept Qatari mediation involving its last war with Hamas. Well, tiny, oil and gas rich Qatar is back in the headlines. After ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Copts in Libya, Cairo sent its air force to bomb ISIS bases in Libya, and Qatar, which funds ISIS, expressed its dismay over the attack. A brouhaha between Qatar and Egypt resulted, and Aljazeera reports today in an article entitled "Qatar recalls ambassador to Egypt over ISIL row":

"Qatar has recalled its ambassador to Egypt 'for consultation' after a row over Cairo's air strikes on targets of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Libya, Qatari state media said.

A foreign ministry official said Doha was recalling its envoy over a statement made by Egypt's delegate to the Arab League Tariq Adel, according to Qatar News Agency.

Adel accused Qatar of supporting terrorism, according to Egyptian media, after Doha's representative expressed reservations over a clause in a communique welcoming Cairo's air strikes on ISIL targets."

Indeed, as well known to Egypt, Qatar funds ISIS and al-Qaeda, but that didn't stop Obama from selling to the Qataris $11 billion worth of Apache helicopters and Patriot and Javelin air-defense systems last July.

However, I suppose that's peanuts compared with Obama's willingness to allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons threshold state. How much more damage can Obama do before he leaves the White House? Personally, I'm counting the days.

Fethullah Gulen, "Turkey's Eroding Democracy": No Mention That Turkey Is Now Hosting Hamas

Given that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has been declared by Obama, a foreign affairs puddinghead, to be one of his best overseas friends (see: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2013/05/16/Erdogan-and-Obama-Best-friends-no-more.html), the content of today's guest New York Times op-ed entitled "Turkey’s Eroding Democracy" by Fethullah Gulen, should come as no surprise. Mr. Fethullah states:

"It is deeply disappointing to see what has become of Turkey in the last few years. Not long ago, it was the envy of Muslim-majority countries: a viable candidate for the European Union on its path to becoming a functioning democracy that upholds universal human rights, gender equality, the rule of law and the rights of Kurdish and non-Muslim citizens. This historic opportunity now appears to have been squandered as Turkey’s ruling party, known as the A.K.P., reverses that progress and clamps down on civil society, media, the judiciary and free enterprise.

. . . .

Turkey has now reached a point where democracy and human rights have almost been shelved."

Mr. Fethulla forgets to mention that Turkey now serves as a headquarters for Hamas.

Elsewhere in the news today, we are told that Zacaria Moussaoui is claiming that members of the Saudi royal family supported al-Qaeda. But why should that have prevented Obama from visiting Saudi Arabia last week, while avoiding Israel, which is just a hop, skip and a jump away from Riyadh?

New York Times Editorial, "Another Syria Peace Conference": Insights Into Obama's Secret Agenda

The latest New York Times editorial entitled "Another Syria Peace Conference" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/opinion/another-syria-peace-conference.html?ref=opinion) is as addle-brained as always. However, given that its editorials habitually reflect Oval Office "thinking," this short piece, ruing the absence of Iran from the upcoming peace conference in Geneva, is certainly worth a read. The editorial board of The Times would have us know:

"Just how the invitation from the United Nations was fumbled is unclear, but it is unfortunate that some diplomatic solution could not have been found to include Iran, which along with Russia is Syria’s main ally, providing President Assad with arms and other military support. In an interview with The New York Times and Time magazine last month, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Iran would not be an impediment to a political settlement. 'We have every interest in helping the process in a peaceful direction,' he said. 'We are satisfied, totally satisfied, convinced that there is no military solution in Syria and that there is a need to find a political solution in Syria.'"

Iran has "every interest in helping the process in a peaceful direction"? "There is no military solution in Syria"? I suppose that is why Iran sent Revolutionary Guard advisors and thousands of Hezbollah fighters to assist Assad.

The editorial continues:

"The civil war has drawn affiliates of Al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists to the Syrian battlefield, and these could eventually be a threat to Shiite-led Iran as well as Russia, which is fighting extremists in the Caucasus and worrying about attacks during the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month.

Mr. Zarif acknowledged this problem generally, asserting that 'the continuation of this tragedy in Syria can only provide the best breeding ground for extremists who use this basically as a justification, as a recruiting climate, in order to wage the same type of activity in other parts of this region.'"

Now I understand: al-Qaeda is extremist, but Hezbollah and the Iran Revolutionary Guard are not, and we should also believe everything that Javad Zarif tells us. Yeah, right.

Again, you might ordinarily expect this sort of muddled thinking from the editorial board of The New York Times, but in this instance it more likely reflects the thinking of the president. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Obama is preparing to elevate the status and standing of Iran at the expense of America's traditional Sunni allies in the region, i.e. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Jordan.

Indeed, the US purportedly objected to the last-minute invitation to Iran from the UN to participate in the talks, but other conciliatory signals - such as this one from the semi-official organ of the Obama administration - are also being sent to Tehran.

Or in a nutshell, Obama is undertaking a Middle Eastern shake-up with all the preparation that went into the rollout of Obamacare.

New York Times Editorial, "The Facts About Benghazi": The Gray Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Lady Gertrude, "Hamlet," Act III, Scene II

Has The New York Times "screwed up" (as Shakespeare might have worded it) again? In an editorial entitled "The Facts About Benghazi" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/opinion/the-facts-about-benghazi.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), The Times declares:

"An exhaustive investigation by The Times goes a long way toward resolving any nagging doubts about what precipitated the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

. . . .

The report by David Kirkpatrick, The Times’s Cairo bureau chief, and his team turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or another international terrorist group had any role in the assault, as Republicans have insisted without proof for more than a year. The report concluded that the attack was led by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s air power and other support during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and that it was fueled, in large part, by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.

In a rational world, that would settle the dispute over Benghazi, which has further poisoned the poisonous political discourse in Washington and kept Republicans and Democrats from working cooperatively on myriad challenges, including how best to help Libyans stabilize their country and build a democracy. But Republicans long ago abandoned common sense and good judgment in pursuit of conspiracy-mongering and an obsessive effort to discredit President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who may run for president in 2016."

Similarly, Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal goes on record as saying in "Taking Note" (http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/republicans-react-to-benghazi-news/?ref=opinion):

"For anyone wondering why it’s so important to Republicans that Al Qaeda orchestrated the attack — or how the Obama administration described the attack in its immediate aftermath — the answer is simple. The Republicans hope to tarnish Democratic candidates by making it seem as though Mr. Obama doesn’t take Al Qaeda seriously. They also want to throw mud at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who they fear will run for president in 2016.

Which brings us to one particularly hilarious theme in the response to the Times investigation. According to Mr. Rogers, the article was intended to “clear the deck” for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said today that The Times was 'already laying the groundwork' for a Clinton campaign. Other Republicans referred to Mrs. Clinton as our 'candidate of choice.'

Since I will have more to say about which candidate we will endorse in 2016 than any other editor at the Times, let me be clear: We have not chosen Mrs. Clinton. We have not chosen anyone. I can also state definitively that there was no editorial/newsroom conspiracy of any kind, because I knew nothing about the Benghazi article until I read it in the paper on Sunday."

In a rational world, a determination of The Times settles a dispute? Criticism of Kirkpatrick's article is all a Republican conspiracy? There is no evidence of al-Qaeda involvement in the September 11 attack on the Benghazi mission? The Times has not yet chosen to endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016?

Fascinating.

But then there is also David French explaining to us in a piece entitled "The Good, the Bad, and the Pathetic of the New York Times’ Benghazi Report" in the National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367224/good-bad-and-pathetic-new-york-times-benghazi-report-david-french#!):

"It’s pathetic that we keep circling back to a YouTube video to explain Benghazi. Did the YouTube video motivate previous attacks in Benghazi, including a previous attack on our own compound? Did a YouTube video motivate Libyan militias to shows of force under the black al-Qaeda flag? Did a YouTube video enable the militias to so carefully scout American positions that they were able to land multiple direct hits on the American CIA annex? At best (and this is being charitable to the reporting), the available evidence indicates the video may have influenced the attack’s timing, but not its motivations nor the capabilities of the attackers.

How long must we chase our own tails? Jihadists attack us, and yet we think if only a Florida preacher didn’t burn a Koran, or if only Danish cartoonists put down their pens, if only cranky felons didn’t make cheap YouTube videos, or if only our soldiers didn’t commit one of the innumerable warned-against slights while deployed downrange, then the haters won’t hate, jihad will truly become an 'inner struggle,' and peace will reign."

And then there is Thomas Joscelyn's piece in The Weekly Standard entitled "The New York Times Whitewashes Benghazi" (http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/new-york-times-whitewashes-benghazi_772382.html), where we learn:

"Left out of the Times’s account are the many leads tying the attackers to al Qaeda’s international network.

For instance, there is no mention of Muhammad Jamal al Kashef, an Egyptian, in Kirkpatrick’s retelling. This is odd, for many reasons.

On October 29, 2012 three other New York Times journalists reported that Jamal’s network, in addition to a known al Qaeda branch (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), was directly involved in the assault. The Times reported (emphasis added): 'Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.'

. . . .

Since the New York Times and other press outlets first reported on the Jamal network’s involvement, both the U.S. State Department and the United Nations have designated Jamal and his subordinates as terrorists. Both the U.S. and UN designations tie Jamal’s network directly to al Qaeda.

The State Department, for instance, notes that Jamal 'has developed connections with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), AQ senior leadership, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leadership.' Jamal not only received funds from AQAP, but has also 'used the AQAP network to smuggle fighters into training camps.'"

So, was Kirkpatrick's New York Times article truly "exhaustive"? Did it resolve "any nagging doubts about what precipitated the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi"?

The Gray Lady doth protest too much, methinks.

David Patrikarakos, "Iran, From Enemy to Ally": Laugh or Cry?

Sometimes a New York Times guest op-ed is so incredibly daft that it takes your breath away and leaves you wondering why Andrew Rosenthal and friends published such an opinion piece. "Iran, From Enemy to Ally" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/opinion/iran-from-enemy-to-ally.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0), by David Patrikarakos, who, we are told, is "a journalist and an associate fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, [and] is the author of  'Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State,'" is just such a guest op-ed.

At a time when Obama is finding it increasingly difficult to sell his unenforceable "agreement to agree" with Khamenei (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/thomas-friedman-bibi-and-barack-sequel.html) to Congress, The New York Times has published this contrived laundry list of reasons why the recent agreement to agree with Iran offers "rapprochement and, eventually, even strategic cooperation with Iran."

Patrikarakos, of course, acknowledges that Iran is a "human rights violator and a sponsor of terrorism." Yup, Iran hangs homosexuals from cranes in the middle of Tehran, stones to death women accused of adultery, and tortures and rapes Baha'is, Kurds, Sunnis, Christians and political dissenters in Evin Prison. Iran also "sponsored" the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing by Hezbollah, which killed 241 American servicemen, and the 1994 bombing by Hezbollah of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 and wounding hundreds. But heck, Iran, according to Patrikarakos, can now "can help with intelligence and regional knowledge" against al-Qaeda.

Does this argument remind you of something? It should. Several decades ago, there were also those who argued that the US should form an alliance with Hitler (also a "human rights violator") to fight the Godless Bolsheviks.

Israel? Patrikarakos writes:

"No matter how many peace treaties are signed with Arab leaders, only Iran has proved it can work with Israel."

That's right: Threats from Iran's mullahs to annihilate Israel should just be ignored, given that Israel once had friendly relations with the Shah. Yes, Israel should ignore Khamenei's declarations that Israel is a "cancerous tumor that needs to be excised" and expect that all will be lovey-dovey once Obama lets Iran have its bomb. Does Patrikarakos take us all for naifs?

Patrikarakos's conclusion:

"But both Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani have proved they can go beyond their respective hard-liners to make a deal. The 21st-century Middle East is a new and dangerous place. To lead the region into a better future, Washington must adapt and leave old enmities behind."

A moderate Rouhani has "gone beyond" Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei? Apparently unbeknownst to Patrikarakos, Khamenei runs the show in Iran. Needless to say, Patrikarakos doesn't bother to tell us how Rouhani boasted prior to the Iranian presidential elections how he lulled the West into complacency while radically expanding Iran's nuclear weapons development program.

Obama and Rouhani are in fact birds of a feather, fighting "their respective hard-liners"? Excuse me, but I feel a wave of nausea coming on.

"To lead the region into a better future, Washington must adapt and leave old enmities behind"? I think what Patrikarakos really meant to say was that to lead the region into a would-be "better future," Washington must leave old friends behind. God help us.

Paul Krugman, "The Big Kludge": Or What Happens When a Community Organizer Becomes President

Do you think Apple or General Electric would ever consider appointing a charismatic community organizer with no managerial experience as their CEO? I don't think so, because their boards of directors would be wise enough to know that any such appointment would likely lead to chaos within their companies.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Big Kludge" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/krugman-the-big-kludge.html?_r=0), Paul Krugman ponders why America doesn't simply offer free medical insurance to all Americans. Krugman writes:

"Of course, we don’t have to imagine such a system, because it already exists. It’s called Medicare, it covers all Americans 65 and older, and it’s enormously popular. So why didn’t we just extend that system to cover everyone?

The proximate answer was politics: Medicare for all just wasn’t going to happen, given both the power of the insurance industry and the reluctance of workers who currently have good insurance through their employers to trade that insurance for something new. Given these political realities, the Affordable Care Act was probably all we could get — and make no mistake, it will vastly improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

Still, the fact remains that Obamacare is an immense kludge — a clumsy, ugly structure that more or less deals with a problem, but in an inefficient way."

Hmm. "Make no mistake, [Obamacare] will vastly improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans"? In fact, Krugman is correct: Obamacare could ultimately improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans, but at the cost of tens of millions to other Americans, unless that cost is simply added to America's national debt, which is currently over $17 trillion and rising by the second.

Medicare and Medicaid are popular? For sure, but they are also plagued by fraud. As stated in a Forbes article entitled "Medicare And Medicaid Fraud Is Costing Taxpayers Billions" (http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/05/31/medicare-and-medicaid-fraud-is-costing-taxpayers-billions/2/) by Merrill Matthews:

"How much Medicare and Medicaid fraud is there? No one knows for sure. In 2010 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report claiming to have identified $48 billion in what it termed as 'improper payments.' That’s nearly 10 percent of the $500 billion in outlays for that year. However, others, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, suggest that there is an estimated $60 to $90 billion in fraud in Medicare and a similar amount for Medicaid."

Yes, there is an ongoing problem involving the manner in which the US government has tackled health care issues.

But back to Krugman, who concludes his op-ed piece by declaring:

"A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn’t have to be that way."

Big government doesn't have to be "bad"? Possibly, but Obama is certainly doing his best to prove the opposite. As observed by Kathleen Parker in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The White House Comedy Club" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-the-white-house-comedy-club/2013/10/25/4765e700-3db2-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html?hpid=z3):

"We reportedly eavesdrop on our allies and force citizens to buy insurance through a system we can’t manage. We concoct character-smearing rumors and attach them to our political adversaries. And that’s just the executive branch. Most important, we have damaged our bonds of trust with nations we need to keep as friends.

Any one of the above would make for a very bad week in governance. Combined, they suggest an uncomfortable conclusion to the world we purport to lead: The lights are flickering in the city on the hill, and our ship of state is foundering."

And as noted by Jackson Diehl in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Foreign policy based on fantasy" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-foreign-policy-based-on-fantasy/2013/10/27/cfd74b06-3cc2-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html?hpid=z3):

"Israel and Saudi Arabia worry that Obama will strike a deal with Iran that frees it from sanctions without entirely extirpating its capacity to enrich uranium — leaving it with the potential to produce nuclear weapons. But more fundamentally, they and their neighbors are dismayed that the United States appears to have opted out of the regional power struggle between Iran and its proxies and Israel and the Arab states aligned with the United States. It is the prospect of waging this regional version of the Cold War without significant U.S. support that has prompted Saudi leaders to hint at a rupture with Washington — and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to talk more publicly than ever about Israel’s willingness to act alone."

Yes, Obama's Middle East policy has spawned antagonism from traditional American allies and chaos throughout the region. It is no accident that an al-Qaeda affiliate caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians in Iraq over the past two months (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/car-bombs-kill-scores-in-baghdad-in-sign-of-crisis-in-iraq/2013/10/27/7ae9c376-3cb3-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html?hpid=z1). Yup, we're talking about that same al-Qaeda, which, according to Obama while campaigning for reelection in 2012, was "decimated" and "on the run" (see: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/9/intel-clashes-obamas-election-year-al-qaeda-claims/?page=all).

Bush was responsible for the mess in Iraq? I agree, but what does that matter five years into the Obama administration? Let's not forget who was responsible for escalating America's inane, boots-on-the-ground involvement in Afghanistan.

Big government does not necessarily have to be bad? I agree. But when big government is managed by a community organizer with no management experience, don't expect things to go right.

Instead, expect "I didn't do it," or its variant, "I didn't know about it." (Ask Jay Carney for a copy of the White House transcript of Obama's recent conversation with Merkel in which Obama tried to explain away US eavesdropping on Merkel's cell phone.)

Expect the "Big Kludge."

Hezbollah vs. al-Qaeda: "Freddy vs. Jason"

Did you happen to see the 2003 movie "Freddy vs. Jason," a 2003 American slasher film, which pits Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" against Jason Voorhees from "Friday the 13th"? Quite honestly I never saw it, and it's certainly not on my list. (I don't think you can pay me enough money to watch it.) So why even mention this "classic" flick?

As reported by Lebanon's Daily Star (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/May-21/217817-hezbollah-role-in-syria-grows-more-prominent.ashx#axzz2TqlVMRsw) in an article entitled "Hezbollah role in Syria grows more prominent":

"Hezbollah was drawn deeper into Syria’s civil war as 28 fighters from the group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, opposition activists said Monday.

The intense battle in Qusair, part of a government offensive aimed at securing a strategic corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, drove rebels from large parts of the town.

. . . .

[I]t took Hezbollah troops a few hours to take control of the city’s main square and municipal building. By the end of the day, they had pushed out rebel units, including the AlQaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, from most of Qusair, he said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by both sides."

Hmm.

Hezbollah vs. al-Qaeda, Freddy vs. Jason . . .

All fine and good, were it not for the fact that more than 80,000 people, mostly innocent civilians, have died since the start of the uprising in Syria, which has resulted in 1.5 million refugees. (Syria has a total population of some 22 million.) That's a helluva lot of human suffering that has gone ignored by much of the world.

"Face the Nation": Dan Pfeiffer Tells a Bald-Faced Lie Concerning Benghazi

Today, on "Face the Nation" (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147142n), Bob Schieffer and Dan Pfeiffer, Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications, had the following interchange:

Bob Schieffer:

"Susan Rice . . . had no connection whatsoever to the events that took place in Benghazi, and yet she was sent out, appeared on this broadcast and other Sunday broadcasts five days after it happens, and I'm not here to get into an argument with you about who changed which word in the talking points and all that. The bottom line is, what she told the American people that day bore no resemblance to what had happened on the ground in an incident where four Americans were killed."

Dan Pfeiffer:

"But . . . what she said, and now that the talking points have been released, or the e-mails and the talking points have been released, we know that what she was saying was what the CIA believed at the time. When we got additional information, we put that out. We tried to get it as right as we could, and as we got new information, we showed it to the American people."

The CIA believed at the time that the Benghazi assault resulted from a spontaneous demonstration provoked by an Internet video? Sorry, no way. We still don't know who was responsible for interjecting the Internet video into the matter, but we do know that the West Wing, the State Department and the CIA removed any mention of al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, from the talking points.

As reported by Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/petraeus-email-objected-benghazi-talking-points-220924269.html):

"Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public, according to emails released Wednesday by the White House.

Under pressure in the investigation that continues eight months after the attacks, the White House on Wednesday released 99 pages of emails and a single page of hand-written notes made by Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15. On that page, Morell scratched out from the CIA's early drafts of talking points mentions of al-Qaida, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.

Petraeus apparently was displeased by the removal of so much of the material his analysts initially had proposed for release. The talking points were sent to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to prepare her for an appearance on news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also to members of the House Intelligence Committee."

Yes, Pfeiffer's fabrications at this late date, in flagrant denial of the facts and falling far beyond the realm of "spin," make me nauseous.

Apparently Pfeiffer believes that by engaging in "speed talk," he can obscure the truth.

How is it that a man as smart as Obama is incapable of understanding that those around him are burying whatever is left of his credibility?

Frank Bruni, "Our Ceaseless Circus": Restaurant Critic Rushes to the Aid of a Beleaguered Obama

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Our Ceaseless Circus" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/bruni-our-ceaseless-circus.html), Frank Bruni rushes to the aid of a beleaguered Obama. Bruni tells us:

• "We live in a country lousy with guns and bloody with gun-related violence,"
• "Now we have a scandal at the Internal Revenue Service to factor in," and
• "To follow the debate over immigration reform is to lose sight at times of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in limbo."

Indeed, American is currently overwhelmed with problems, which also include some 50 million Americans on food stamps, a horrifying level of unemployment, and federal debt of some $16.8 trillion. With regard to all these sorrows, Bruni tells us:

"On issue after issue, the sideshow swallows the substance, as politicians and the seemingly infinite ranks of political handlers join us journalists in gaming everything out, ad infinitum."

A "sideshow"? Now just when did I last hear that word used? Oh, that's right, it was President Obama yesterday telling us with respect to the Benghazi debacle that the redaction of the talking points was a "sideshow" and that the House investigation of the assault is a "political circus."

Feigning objectivity, Bruni goes on to say:

"At Obama’s news conference, he breezed past the I.R.S. debacle too quickly, and I’m not sure why he’d stayed mum until then. He flashed too much self-righteous anger about the scrutiny of the Benghazi talking points, which strike to important matters of accountability and credibility.

But however self-servingly, Obama got one thing about Benghazi exactly right: what’s most vital, and what’s being obscured, is how we improve diplomatic security."

Sorry, Frank, but how do you "improve diplomatic security" when both the secretary of state and the president are prepared to lie to the American people concerning the identity of those threatening diplomatic security?

One day after the attack, Hillary stated (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/new-york-times-editorial-republicans.html), "we are working to determine the precise motivations and methods of those who carried out this assault" and then linked the attack to "inflammatory material posted on the Internet." Months later, of course, Hillary would infamously declare:

"With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Whether it was because of a protest or because guys outside for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans. What difference at this point does it make?"

Obama, in an appearance on the "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart on October 18, 2012, declared:

"When a tragic event like this happens on the other side of the world, immediately a whole bunch of intelligence starts coming in and people try to piece together exactly what happened. And what I have always tried to do is to make sure we just get all the facts, figure out what went wrong, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. And we’re still in that process now. But everything we get, every piece of information we get — as we got it — we laid it out for the American people."

Needless to say, "every piece of information" was not laid out for the American people. In fact, no information was subsequently laid out for examination. The Obama administration systematically obscured the involvement of al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, in the assault.

Yes, Frank, America is awash with problems and scandals, but Benghazi is no "sideshow." Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans died under siege when no one lifted a finger to come to their aid. For his part, Obama, aware of the crisis, went to bed.

Benghazi did not happen "a long time ago," as White House spokesman Jay Carney would have us believe, and notwithstanding all the other problems, it is not going to be swept under the carpet.

It's not a sideshow, it's not Republicans versus Democrats, rather it's a straightforward matter of right and wrong.

See also: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/david-brooks-next-scapegoat-benghazi.html

David Brooks, "The Next Scapegoat": Benghazi? There's Enough Blame to Go Around for Everyone

The New York York Times editorial board and Times columnist David Brooks have finally woken up to their failure to relate to the Benghazi scandal. Having sought for so long to sweep Benghazi under the rug (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/david-brooks-beyond-fence-new-jg.html), the editorial board of The Times is now engaged in damage control regarding its own reputation and that of the Obama administration, which it so faithfully serves (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/05/13/all-the-banality-thats-fit-to-print/). Brooks, on the other hand, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Next Scapegoat" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/brooks-the-next-scapegoat.html?_r=0), is seeking to defend a friend, Victoria Nuland.

Indeed, the West Wing, the State Department and the CIA are now busy pointing fingers at one another and attempting to shift the blame. President Obama would have us forget the whole thing, which he labels a "sideshow," in keeping with the attempt by White House spokesman Jay Carney to relegate the affair to ancient history, i.e. "Let's be clear, Benghazi happened a long time ago." In fact, there is enough blame to go around for everyone.

In defense of Nuland, Brooks today tells us:

"Over the past few weeks, the spotlight has turned on Nuland. The charge is that intelligence officers prepared accurate talking points after the attack in Benghazi, Libya, and that Nuland, serving her political masters, watered them down.

The charges come from two quarters, from Republicans critical of the Obama administration’s handling of Benghazi and intelligence officials shifting blame for Benghazi onto the State Department.

. . . .

We now know, thanks to reporting by Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and Michael Schmidt in The Times, that Benghazi was primarily a C.I.A. operation. Furthermore, intelligence officers underestimated how dangerous the situation was. They erred in vetting the Libyan militia that was supposed to provide security."

The article by Schmitt, Cooper and Schmidt (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/world/africa/attack-in-libya-was-major-blow-to-cia-efforts.html), to which Brooks refers, told us back on September 23, 2012:

"'It’s a catastrophic intelligence loss,' said one American official who has served in Libya and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the F.B.I. is still investigating the attack. 'We got our eyes poked out.'

The C.I.A.’s surveillance targets in Benghazi and eastern Libya include Ansar al-Sharia, a militia that some have blamed for the attack, as well as suspected members of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb."

Note that the damage to CIA operations in Libya contradicted the Obama administration's pre-election narrative, i.e. that US involvement in bringing down the Qaddafi regime, which had been demeaned by some as "leadership from behind," had in fact been a smashing success and that al-Qaeda, with the death of bin Laden, had been dealt a mortal blow.

Brooks's conclusion regarding this disaster:

"Several things were apparently happening. Each of the different players had their hands on a different piece of the elephant. If there was any piece of the talking points that everybody couldn’t agree upon, it got cut. Second, the administration proceeded with extreme caution about drawing conclusions, possibly overlearning the lessons from the Bush years. Third, as the memos moved up the C.I.A. management chain, the higher officials made them more tepid (this is apparently typical). Finally, in the absence of a clear narrative, the talking points gravitated toward the least politically problematic story, blaming the anti-Muslim video and the Cairo demonstrations.

Is this a tale of hard intelligence being distorted for political advantage? Maybe. Did Victoria Nuland scrub the talking points to serve Clinton or President Obama? That charge is completely unsupported by the evidence. She was caught in a brutal interagency turf war, and she defended her department. The accusations against her are bogus."

First, I don't know Ms. Nuland. More to the point, I am not blaming her. I don't even blame Susan Rice, an Obama devotee, who thought she was doing her job.

As far as I am concerned, there are two primary aspects to the Benghazi debacle. First, a US ambassador in the Middle East was murdered, and the Obama administration never lifted a finger to protect him while the assault was underway. Even if the US presence in Benghazi primarily involved intelligence gathering, the murder of a US ambassador, the American retreat from the city with its tail between its legs, and the failure to carry out retribution against those who perpetrated the attack, have dealt US overseas prestige a stinging blow.

The second failure involves a concerted effort by the Obama administration, going right up to the top, to misinform the American electorate. Let's ignore the shameful way in which the talking points were redacted at the expense of the truth. Suffice it to say, we witnessed the over-zealous efforts of persons, many of them youngsters, whose expertise involves public relations and who know nothing - and consequently care nothing - about actual events on the ground. In short, these people were doing what they do best, i.e. spinning a nasty set of circumstances.

Instead, let's focus on what Hillary Clinton had to say. Hillary toed the Obama administration's line and tied the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi to an absurd film concerning Mohamed. One day after the attack, she stated (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/new-york-times-editorial-republicans.html), "we are working to determine the precise motivations and methods of those who carried out this assault" and then linked the attack to "inflammatory material posted on the Internet." Months later, of course, Hillary would infamously declare:

"With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Whether it was because of a protest or because guys outside for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans. What difference at this point does it make?"

President Obama? In an appearance on the "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart on October 18, 2012, Obama declared:

"When a tragic event like this happens on the other side of the world, immediately a whole bunch of intelligence starts coming in and people try to piece together exactly what happened. And what I have always tried to do is to make sure we just get all the facts, figure out what went wrong, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. And we’re still in that process now. But everything we get, every piece of information we get — as we got it — we laid it out for the American people."

Needless to say, "every piece of information" was not laid out for the American people. In fact, no information was subsequently laid out for examination.

Or stated otherwise, Hillary and Obama told bald-faced lies.

Is it a "scandal" when an American ambassador is murdered and no one comes to his aid, and when America's secretary of state and president cover up the facts? I think so, but then, heck, maybe at my age, I'm no longer attuned to our brave new world.

New York Times Editorial, "The Republicans’ Benghazi Obsession": The Times Papers Over Benghazi

Hillary Clinton lied to the American public. It's that simple.

Hillary toed the Obama administration's line and tied the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi to an absurd film concerning Mohamed. Hillary, one day after the attack, stated that "we are working to determine the precise motivations and methods of those who carried out this assault" and then linked the attack to "inflammatory material posted on the Internet."

Months later, of course, Hillary would declare: "With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Whether it was because of a protest or because guys outside for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans. What difference at this point does it make?"

In an editorial entitled "The Republicans’ Benghazi Obsession" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/opinion/the-republicans-benghazi-obsession.html?_r=0), The New York Times has finally gotten around to addressing the Benghazi hearing, after doing all in its power to ignore this story (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/david-brooks-beyond-fence-new-jg.html). The tone and content of this editorial are nauseating. According to The Times:

"Before Wednesday’s hearing on the attack in Benghazi, Libya, Republicans in Congress promised explosive new details about the administration’s mishandling of the episode. Instead, the hearing showed, yet again, that sober fact-finding is not their mission. Common sense and good judgment have long given way to conspiracy-mongering and a relentless effort to discredit President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

. . . .


Wednesday’s hearing, led by Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican of California who is chairman of the House oversight committee, featured three witnesses who testified about those failures. One of them, Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 official at the American Embassy in Tripoli, was at the embassy the night of the Benghazi attack. He said he was later demoted for raising questions about how the incident was handled, a charge the State Department denied.

The hearing did not prove anything like an administration cover-up or other hysterical allegations of crimes equal to Watergate that some Republicans, such as Representative Steve King and Senator Lindsey Graham, have alleged. Republicans have held numerous hearings and briefings on Benghazi and are threatening to hold even more. It is a level of interest they did not show during George W. Bush’s administration when there were 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets or in the years they spent cutting back diplomatic security budgets.

The real scandal is that serious follow-up on security in Libya is going unaddressed."

Are we really to believe that "new details about the administration’s mishandling of the episode" did not surface at the hearing? Rubbish. We learned how the American military was ordered to "stand down," leading to the certain deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three others.

We learned that everyone in the Obama administration had been informed real-time that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was not the result of a spontaneous "demonstration" and that it had no connection to "inflammatory material posted on the Internet."

Americans were systematically misled, and I take no comfort in the fact that during the Bush administration, there were 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets, or in the allegation by The Times that the "real scandal" lies elsewhere.

Did the Obama administration engage in criminal activity by lying about the reasons and persons responsible for the attack on the Benghazi consulate? Probably not. But as observed by Michael Gerson in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Incompetence, not criminality, in Benghazi investigation" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-incompetence-not-criminality-in-benghazi-investigation/2013/05/09/c395f84e-b8c7-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html?hpid=z2):

"First, the administration was willing to shift all the responsibility for its public errors to the intelligence community. During the vice presidential debate, moderator Martha Raddatz asked Joe Biden why the White House had attributed the death of Stevens to the video. He responded: 'Because that was exactly what we were told by the intelligence community.'

. . . .

Second, the administration was willing to undermine a foreign leader in a fragile circumstance. Soon after the attack, Libyan President Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf insisted that 'the idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous. We firmly believe that this was a precalculated, preplanned attack.' According to Hicks, the administration’s alternative version of events left Magariaf 'insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced. His ability to lead his own country was damaged.'

Third, the administration was willing to feed an image of irrational Muslim rage that did not, in fact, apply to Libya. 'The video was not an instigator of anything that was going on in Libya,' Hicks testified. 'We saw no demonstrations related to the video anywhere in Libya.' Did it serve U.S. public diplomacy to assert, as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did, that Libyans had joined 'the tyranny of a mob,' rather than being victimized by terrorist organizations?"

In short, what surfaced from the Benghazi hearing should have nothing to do with partisan politics. It has everything to do with the Obama administration lying in bald-faced fashion.

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Republicans lead a witch hunt on Benghazi" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-republicans-lead-a-witch-hunt-on-benghazi/2013/05/09/ca565d10-b8de-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html?hpid=z2), Eugene Robinson claims that "it was hard to imagine" that the Benghazi assault "was completely unrelated to what was happening in Cairo, Tunis, Khartoum and Jakarta." Sorry, Eugene, but given that the Obama administration had real-time information concerning the nature of the attack in Libya, any such confusion should have dissipated within hours, and the storyline disseminated five days later by Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, on Sunday talk shows, explaining that the attack came as a consequence of the anti-Islamic video, was an exercise in deceit.

And then there is also the small matter of how the Obama administration has failed to lay its hands on anyone responsible for the attack.

Was the hearing a part of a "relentless effort to discredit President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton," as claimed by the editorial board of The New York Times? Again, what happened in Benghazi should have nothing to do with partisan politics. On the other hand, there can be no disguising the fact that the conduct of Obama and Clinton was self-serving and despicable with devastating consequences for US government credibility at home and overseas.

Maureen Dowd, "No Bully in the Pulpit": Bitching About Obama, Ignoring Boston

As I explained to my wife earlier today, our family has had its fair share of trauma. Two of my army buddies lost their faces to a Molotov cocktail, and my son's officer died a yard away from him. I'll spare you the details of both of these incidents, but if there is such a thing as post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), we both suffer from it. I've seen a lot over the course of a lifetime, but nothing left me prepared for what happened in Boston. Just a month ago, my daughter and I were spending quality time together on the streets where this horror played out. I had hoped that radical Islamic terror would not revisit America's shores, but my dreams were shattered.

"Radical Islamic terror"? You don't see these words in the headlines of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Rather, you see idle talk about discovering the motive for this latest travesty. The motive? It's as clear as day: radical Islamists hate the U.S. and will do all they can to destroy America's infrastructure, culture and way of life. You don't believe me? Type the words "Islam death to America" into Google, and spend the rest of the day educating yourself. Travel from Iran to Egypt, to Yemen, to Indonesia.

Radical Islam opposes women's rights. It opposes gay rights. It opposes religious freedom. It opposes freedom of speech.

It's time to wake up.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "No Bully in the Pulpit" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/opinion/sunday/dowd-president-obama-is-no-bully-in-the-pulpit.html?_r=0), Maureen Dowd again ignores what happened in Boston and busily berates Obama for failing to gain Senate approval of new gun control legislation. Dowd writes:

"President Obama has watched the blood-dimmed tide drowning the ceremony of innocence, as Yeats wrote, and he has learned how to emotionally connect with Americans in searing moments, as he did from the White House late Friday night after the second bombing suspect was apprehended in Boston.

Unfortunately, he still has not learned how to govern.

How is it that the president won the argument on gun safety with the public and lost the vote in the Senate? It’s because he doesn’t know how to work the system. And it’s clear now that he doesn’t want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him.

It’s unbelievable that with 90 percent of Americans on his side, he could get only 54 votes in the Senate. It was a glaring example of his weakness in using leverage to get what he wants. No one on Capitol Hill is scared of him."

Obama is a fabulous teleprompter speaker, but an incompetent leader? You don't say. It took Dowd more than four years to find this out.

Gun control? As I've stated repeatedly, I favor a ban on the sale of assault rifles and stricter background checks. But I also acknowledge that each year knives kill four time more Americans than rifles (see: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8).

And now Americans have painfully come to learn of the dangers of pressure cookers packed with explosives.

Guns don't kill, people do, and there are plenty of organizations like al-Qaeda prepared to teach them how to do it.

Maureen Dowd, "The C.I.A.’s Angry Birds": After the Boston Marathon Attack, We Should All Be Angry

On Tuesday, President Obama finally got around to acknowledging that the bombing of the Boston Marathon was an "act of terrorism." Hmm, three dead and more than 170 wounded from bombs constructed from pressure cookers packed with BBs, nails and pellets - that sure as heck sounds like an "act of terrorism" to me. But why the delay in acknowledging it as such? Might it have been politically incorrect to do so too precipitously and have cost votes in future elections? Or was this simply the Procrastinator-in-Chief doing what he does best?

And now we have the White House and the media attempting to dance around the issue of the origin of this travesty. As observed in an article in today's Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/boston-marathon-bombs-had-simple-but-harmful-design-early-clues-indicate/2013/04/16/c2b061cc-a6d8-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html?hpid=z1) written by Joby Warrick and Sari Horwitz:

"The [explosive] devices’ design was immediately recognized by counterterrorism experts as a type touted by al-Qaeda for use by its operatives around the world. Similar devices have been used by terrorists in mass-casualty bombings in numerous countries, from the Middle East to South Asia to North Africa."

Well, allow me once again to be politically incorrect and "theorize" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/david-brooks-what-youll-do-next-data.html) that this horror was the work of radical Islamists. I know: the design of the device is available on the Internet, and there is no way of being 100% sure, but in this instance do we really wish to play parlor games in an effort not to offend anyone?

I am offended by this attack. And although the Obama administration in the past would have us believe that the war with al-Qaeda is over - hence, efforts to attribute the attack upon the US consulate in Benghazi to "demonstrators" - it is far from that. The US is under fire from an organization seeking to undermine America's landmarks, institutions and way of life.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The C.I.A.’s Angry Birds" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/opinion/the-cias-angry-birds.html?_r=0), Maureen Dowd takes the CIA and the intelligence wing of the United States Army to task for the seemingly casual manner in which they undertake targeted assassinations of Muslim jihadists. Dowd writes:

"After two bloody, money-sucking, never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the idea of a weapon for war that precluded having anyone actually go to war was too captivating. Our sophisticated, sleek, smart, detached president was ensorcelled by our sophisticated, sleek, smart, detached war machine.

. . . .

But as The Times’s Mark Mazzetti notes in his new book, 'The Way of the Knife,' 'the analogy suggests that this new kind of war is without costs or blunders — a surgery without complications. This isn’t the case.'

Mazzetti raises the issue of whether the C.I.A. — which once sold golf shirts with Predator logos in its gift shop — became 'so enamored of its killer drones that it wasn’t pushing its analysts to ask a basic question: To what extent might the drone strikes be creating more terrorists than they are actually killing?'

Mazzetti writes that Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, watched one of the first drone strikes via satellite at Langley a few weeks after 9/11. As he saw a Mitsubishi truck in Afghanistan being blown up, Dearlove smiled wryly. 'It almost isn’t sporting, is it?' the Brit asked."

In trademark snarky fashion, Dowd concludes:

"President Obama, who continued nearly every covert program handed down by W., clearly feels tough when he talks about targeted killings, and considers drones an attractive option. As Mazzetti says, 'fundamental questions about who can be killed, where they can be killed, and when they can be killed' still have not been answered or publicly discussed.

It almost isn’t sporting, is it?"

Sorry, Maureen but the savage ongoing war with al-Qaeda is not sport. The Boston Marathon, which most likely was attacked by radical Islamists - again, I admit it's too early to be certain - is sport.

Regrettably, rules - and sometimes laws - get bent in war. Yes, I think we can all agree that given an ideal set of circumstances, it would be much preferable to engage in far-reaching debate and to seek judicial review before taking the life of suspected terrorists by remote control from above. But then, during wartime, circumstances do not always permit reflection and procrastination. Anyone who has ever found himself or herself in a battle zone knows that if you procrastinate too long, you die.

Unlike Maureen, I have every reason to believe in the underlying decency of those working out of Arlington and Langley, notwithstanding my opposition to the Second Gulf War and America's ground war in Afghanistan.

And unlike Maureen, I am also someone who has witnessed up close the aftermath of terror attacks, and know that there are limits to oversight and due diligence when confronting al-Qaeda.

In short, a balance must be drawn, but it must not be forgotten, as we proceed with our everyday lives, that the US is engaged in a war that threatens its existence. The attack on the Boston Marathon, i.e. a violent intrusion upon our everyday lives, was yet another wake-up call.

David Brooks, "Florence and the Drones": Do You Suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Do you suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD")? Do you even believe in its existence? Personally, I'm not big on labels. Yes, I've witnessed the aftermath of suicide bombings from up close, I've got a hairline trigger temper, it's hard for me to forgive and forget, and I have few expectations involving human charity and compassion. But then I suppose that we all have unresolved issues from the past, and I'm not complaining about the hand that I was dealt. After all, I chose to sit down at the blackjack table.

David Brooks latest New York Times op-ed, "Florence and the Drones" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/opinion/brooks-florence-and-the-drones.html), is a must read. Brooks's opinion piece brings into focus Obama's policy of using drones to deter terror, which has finally captured the attention of the public owing to questioning on Thursday by the Senate Intelligence Committee of John Brennan, the president's nominee for director the CIA (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/brennan-defends-drone-strike-policies/2013/02/07/f7384950-7145-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html?hpid=z2).

Brooks writes:

"There are still terrorists out there, hiding in the shadows and plotting to kill Americans. So even today’s leaders face the Machiavellian choice: Do I have to be brutal to protect the people I serve? Do I have to use drones, which sometimes kill innocent children, in order to thwart terror and save the lives of my own?

When Barack Obama was a senator, he wasn’t compelled to confront the brutal logic of leadership. Now in office, he’s thrown into the Machiavellian world. He’s decided, correctly, that we are in a long war against Al Qaeda; that drone strikes do effectively kill terrorists; that, in fact, they inflict fewer civilian deaths than bombing campaigns, boots on the ground or any practical alternative; that, in fact, civilian death rates are dropping sharply as the C.I.A. gets better at this. Acting brutally abroad saves lives at home."

However, Brooks also believes that Obama's use of drones demands oversight:

"Drone strikes are so easy, hidden and abstract. There should be some independent judicial panel to review the kill lists. There should be an independent panel of former military and intelligence officers issuing reports on the program’s efficacy."

Indeed, al-Qaeda has not been neutered, as the Obama administration wanted us believe prior to the tragedy in Benghazi. Moreover, as recently acknowledged by The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-tied-to-al-qaeda-play-key-role-in-war.html?pagewanted=all), "The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support the rebels but not Islamic extremists."

My dark vision of the world, which may or may not be affected by PTSD? I wouldn't make too much of an issue of drone strikes. Ultimately, al-Qaeda and its counterparts will adapt their tactics to the drone threat, rendering it entirely ineffective - akin to bacteria growing resistant to antibiotics. New medicines will need to be sought in this protracted war against terrorism, which shows no sign of abating.

If you ask me, not nearly enough has been done to obstruct terrorist financing. Without funds, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah cannot perpetrate their abhorrent outrages. But in order to choke off the financing, Europe and the world's banks need to cooperate. Then, too, the US requires a secretary of defense with a no-nonsense, uncompromising attitude toward terror and not the contradictory, self-serving views of Chuck Hagel.

But then who is asking?

Yemen: Amputations and a Crucifixion

Amnesty International has just issued a new report entitled 'Conflict in Yemen: Abyan's Darkest Hour,'(http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE31/010/2012/en/5c85d728-a9ab-4693-afe9-edecc2b8670e/mde310102012en.pdf), describing human rights abuses in southern Yemen. The report details horrors perpetrated by the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia organization, which is linked to al-Qaeda, and Yemeni government forces, backed with US intelligence and drone strikes:

"During its 14-month rule in Ja'ar, Ansar al-Sharia committed a wide range of human rights abuses in its attempts to maintain 'order'. It imposed punishments, including summary killings and amputations, on people it accused of spying, 'sorcery' and theft, among other activities.

. . . .

Saleh Ahmed Saleh al-Jamil . . . was found guilty by a 'religious court' in Ja'ar of planting two electronic devices in two vehicles carrying commanders and members fighting for Ansar al-Sharia.

. . . .

Saleh al-Jamil's body was crucified in the town for all to see.

. . . .

Yemeni government forces, in their efforts to regain control of the areas that had fallen to Ansar al-Sharia, increasingly used aircraft and artillery against residential areas, putting at risk civilian residents.

. . . .

In other attacks government forces appeared to fail to take necessary precautions to spare civilians, such as verifying a target was in fact military . . . and giving advance warning to civilians of an attack."

Query: Where were the Washington Post home page pictures of the victims of these outrages? Or perhaps such pictures can only be shown of aggrieved Gazans, notwithstanding the troubles the Israel Defense Forces took during Operation Pillar of Defense to provide advance warning to civilians of attacks and its willingness to cancel attacks when civilians were endangered.

Meanwhile, Thomas Pickering, the person selected by Obama to investigate the Benghazi scandal, decries American ignorance of Islam (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/david-ignatius-its-close-call-on-susan.html). Believe me, there are things you are better off not knowing.

[I will also not be traveling to Ja'ar anytime soon.]

Maureen Dowd, "Spellbound by Blondes, Hot and Icy": Or Meet the Bride of Frankenstein?

Movies? I love them. A screenplay that I wrote many years ago almost became a Hollywood flick. Today, I occasionally take a break from my consulting business, turn off my cell phone, and play minor roles in television commercials. But most fun of all is curling up in a plush chair in the darkness of a theater and, within the space of five minutes, falling into a deep sleep.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Spellbound by Blondes, Hot and Icy" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/opinion/sunday/dowd-spellbound-by-blondes-hot-and-icy.html?_r=0), Maureen Dowd begins by observing Hitchcock's "obsession with luminous blondes," then segues into a critique of "America's other blond obsession," Hillary Clinton. Dowd, who has never been fond of Hillary, informs us:

"While Republicans continue their full-cry pursuit of Susan Rice, the actual secretary of state has eluded blame, even though Benghazi is her responsibility. The assault happened on Hillary’s watch, at her consulate, with her ambassador. Given that we figured out a while ago that the Arab Spring could be perilous as well as promising, why hadn’t the State Department developed new norms for security in that part of the world? After 200 years of expecting host countries to protect our diplomats, Hillary et al. didn’t make the adjustment when countries were dissolving.

. . . .

A blonde who’s a canny survivor, cool under pressure. Hitchcock would approve."

Me? It's hard for me to make the transition from Hollywood, which represents pure escapism, to politics, which embodies pure evil.

Is Hillary a "canny survivor, cool under pressure," or just another narcissist, given to prevarication, and caught up in the power game? I suggest that you ignore her "Invisible Woman" role in the Benghazi scandal and that you instead focus on her 2011 defense of Bashar al-Assad, rendered at a time when the Syrian tyrant was gunning down thousands of unarmed protesters. Yes, you heard Hillary declare with a wisp of a smile:

“There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer. What’s been happening there the last few weeks is deeply concerning, but there’s a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities [as in Libya] and police actions, which, frankly, have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see.”

Well, Assad over the past year has strafed and bombed his own cities, and the Obama administration did . . . nothing. We've now entered December of 2012, and with the number of dead in Syria exceeding 40,000, it looks like al-Qaeda could soon be taking over the show. Yeah, I know, Obama told us that al-Qaeda was finished.

Will Hillary's name again appear on marquees throughout the nation in 2016? I hope not. I'm no fan of the horror film genre.